We're circling the drain on the definition of being British now.

When asked what British identity means by podcaster Elliot Bewick, Kemi Badenoch said it is a matter of abiding by cultural norms, standards, and laws.

This is an incoherent, unsustainable definition, which precludes the possibility for people to be traitors — villains in our national story — by trying to make being British a normative category which is purely good things. And that just isn't true.

Being British is a matter of having English, Welsh, Scottish, or Irish ancestry. Reducing British identity to a matter of self-identification marginalises relevant questions of ancestry, loyalty, and how national identity becomes more salient when confronted with its opposites.

The arguments have been made. The civic nationalist, values-based case for British identity falls apart under scrutiny. Culture and countries are the properties of the peoples who invent them and pass them on via inheritance to their descendants. I refuse to lie because some people feel excluded by their inability to be British, no matter how good a person they are.

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